Fight or Flight Response

Two people are in a fight. Person A wants to fight and Person B wants to flee from the current situation. The biological approach to psychology explains that sensory nerve cells pass the identification of a threat or stress (stimuli) from the environment to the area of the brain called the hypothalamus. Neurosecretory cells in the hypothalamus transmit a signal to the pituitary gland, causing cells there to release a chemical messenger into the bloodstream. At the same time, the hypothalamus transmits a nerve signal down the spinal cord. Both the chemical messenger and nerve impulse will travel to the adrenal gland. Adrenaline is a hormone in the adrenal gland which is secreted when we are afraid, stressed or angry. It also causes the heart rate and stroke volume to increase, preparing us for ‘fight or flight’ (response). The purpose of this physiological reaction is to ready the body for one of two reactions to a perceived threat in our environment — to fight or to flee.

But what influences a person’s choice to either fight or flight?

From the nature-nurture debate, their response could be based on upbringing. Person A’s confrontational personality and fight response could have been shaped by their early experiences  such as being exposed to violence at a young age. It could also be due to their own learning – they believe that they will/can come out on top at the end of the fight and associate fighting with winning as a reward (this is also their own conscious decision making).

Person B’s flight response can be explained in the same way. They could have been taught at an early age to avoid trouble and confrontation as is could be a danger to them. They could have also learned that violence leads to a bad outcome thus avoid it.

From a different angle, by applying Freud’s ego-defence theory and the psychoanalytic approach, Person A may not actually want to fight which means that they are using displacement as an ego defence mechanism to take out their anger to feel better. Person B could have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Similarly, Person A could see B as threatening which causes them to distort reality and believe that they can win the fight by being more violent to protect their conscious mind. Furthermore, if A did see B as a threat, A could be in denial by refusing to believe that B is too threatening to fight.